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On a cold, snowy afternoon in February, hundreds of angry people crowded into the riverside Rod and Gun Club in Kitimat, on B.C.'s northwest coast.
This is a town that has been badly hit by a series of job killing setbacks over the years, the latest the closing of a Eurocan paper mill last year with the loss of more than 500 jobs.
But for the people in the room today it is a new resource crunch that has them feeling threatened; as they see it, a much more restrictive Department of Fisheries and Oceans quota on recreational halibut. |
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Similar protests have flared up recently all along the B.C. coast and on Vancouver Island, many of them directed at local Conservative MPs.
As Mike Langegger, a member of the Kitimat Rod and Gun told the meeting: "This is a lifestyle, a tradition, a culture. It's the many friendships, families, bonds that are fostered in our fishing and hunting culture. Today we are standing up for our children and future generations."
The 2011 recreational halibut season has just opened, a month late, on March 1. And with it are growing fears that the season will close by mid-summer — meaning in the height of tourist season. |
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